Father: Page was remorseful

July 12, 2007

SIOUX FALLS (AP) - Kenneth Chapman, father of condemned murderer Elijah Page, said he visited his son every day this past week at the South Dakota State Penitentiary and told him he loved him. Page, 25, died by lethal injection Wednesday night for the torture slaying of a Spearfish man in 2000. According to Chapman, his son was remorseful. “He wants everybody to know he feels bad for what happened. He's not a cold-hearted person like they're making him out to be,” Chapman told Sioux Falls television station KELO. Chapman, who lives in Texas, said he talked with his son about old times. “Things we used to do, people we used to be with. You know, things like that. Family. Things he's missed. Things we've missed of him.” Chapman said he didn't even know he had a son until Page was 13. Page was raised by his mother and stepfather, who abused him. Chapman said he thinks that abuse could have contributed to making someone capable of murder. “I can understand if a person (was) beaten and abused the way he was his whole life. Shoved into one foster home and out the other, certainly it's going to cross their views of right and wrong and all that,” Chapman said. Page had more legal appeal avenues open to him but chose to die. And Chapman said he could not talk his son out of it. “Every one of us has begged him not to go through with it. But he's set in his mind to do what he has to do. “I'm not asking them to feel sorry for my son. My son's man enough to stand up for what he done. And there's very few in this world that does that. But he was honorable enough to stand up and pay the piper for what he did. I wish someone would look at that.” Asked if he loved his son, Chapman said: “I love him with all my heart.”